In my review of Rick Strassman's book DMT: The Spirit Molecule (posted way back in the mists of time), I noted that "it is the case studies in the latter part of the book that make it something special." As with the near-death experience, listening to experiencers' direct testimony of this 'otherworld' is compelling stuff.

If you haven't already seen the recent documentary based on Rick Strassman's book, then I recommend you watch this 10 minute segment from it on YouTube, in which the volunteers from his research study describe in their own words the DMT experiences they had:

On a sidenote, you might notice that the clip opens with a description of the 'hum' that often heralds the onset of the experience - something I wrote about in my Darklore article "Her Sweet Murmur". Rabbit-holes, rabbit-holes everywhere, which one shall we explore today...?

An interesting 10 minutes, especially if you ignore the graphics and concentrate on what the volunteers are saying. I was struck however, by the profile of the people involved: they seem to be well educated and able to express themselves, but are they a sample that would not influence the experience of taking the 'medicine'? None said they had no idea what was coming, and to me it seemed that their individual experiences reflected their (possibly) preconceived ideas and or expectations.

However, taking a look at a 10 minute section with out seeing the whole could have given a false impression.

So I would love to know if similar results would be experienced by someone who did not know what they were taking, ie a control person to evaluate the other volunteers experiences against.

Perhaps these were the most eloquent of the test subjects? Wouldn't be much of a documentary if all you showed were some wide-eyed fools yelling to the camera "And then it was like BAM! and I was like WHOAA!" ;)

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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

Really lovely stories. It is obvious that everyone needs to experience such realities though not in such a brutal and often terrifying manner. The drugs are still crude, blunt instruments. Eventually we will figure out ways to more gently introduce the mind to these experiences, and that is when the real human revolution will happen.

To me it's become clear that DMT provides all life a way to connect, stay in touch with the Creator Realm. For us humans having the highest consciousness around, it provides a conscious way into this realm. In fact anyone could visit the creator realm just take a DMT trip, it's obvious these trips are shaped by what a traveler can handle and/or wants to learn. We have been a part of the DMT path during our evolution from the beginning of time of life on this planet. It's a simple and beautiful system even topping the DNA coding that has our geneticists hooked. Theoretically it will enable us to communicate with all other life (fauna & flora) snd any aliens as i suspect they too will have DMT reception and probably use that for telepathic connection between themselves and others.

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“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”. --Aristotle

I'm not sure how much it helps to attempt to illustrate the interesting descriptions being given, with someone else's artwork and special effects, which while suggestive of the experience, really doesn't do it enough justice. Given the choice, I'd rather just watch them talking, and try to imagine what they're describing.

For instance: Some of the things I saw during my single verified LSD experience some time in my teens in the mid-1970s (though I'm not sure how much LSD and DMT experiences compare, since I've never taken DMT), with a couple relatives and their friends, resembled some of the more geometrical images shown, but mine were encrusted with moving images of actual things I'd seen in my life up to that age, or extrapolated from what I'd seen. Among other things, I saw large, long, sliced-up tubes, some of which were passing by me, and some of which were receding upwards directly away from me, composed of immense numbers of rings, somewhat resembling images of DNA strands that show the molecules encrusting the strands, but without a helical structure, and with a central empty area that seemed to be inviting me to travel up it and observe the surrounding rings (which I did a little). It seemed as if all the millions of things I was seeing attached to those rings, were trying to communicate with me at the same time, trying to tell me to remember the lessons I'd learned during the real-world experiences that they derived from, and also trying to tell me to keep thinking about those experiences to come to new conclusions. While instructive, the quantity was a little much for me to handle all at once. Maybe a smaller dose would have been wiser.

I say "single verified LSD experience" since other things I took a few times after that, which I was told were LSD, may not have been, judging by their mostly simple speedy quality. Lesson: you need to more than know your source--you need to be able to personally verify what it really is, to a level of reasonable certainty.

Never took DMT or LSD, but did mushrooms a few times around 20 years ago. One noteworthy experience: girlfriend drove me to the local bowling alley not knowing I'd eaten mushrooms with my friend. After visiting some friends there we sat and talked - and it truly seemed as though I was connected with her inner consciousness, knowing and feeling in advance everything she was saying - like an author's omniscient point of view... but of course that could be merely subjective fantasy. The interesting verifiable weirdness came next...

We went to play a pinball machine, only 3 balls on horribly hard machine, never previously lasted more than a minute with very few points. I was slightly past the mushroom's peak intensity and had settled into a comfortable joyful mellowness. That first ball lasted several minutes - no matter what I did it would not go down the middle or side channels and the points just kept rising. It felt as though I was truly connected with the machine - not so much the machine as an object, but as if the energy all around it and me were in harmony. My girlfriend commented you're good, I just started laughing because I wasn't good on this machine. I won a free game with that first ball which I'd never even gotten a fraction of the needed points after 3 balls before. Finally it drained. Hers drained immediatlely. My second one again lasted like five minutes or more, same phenomenah and I won two more games. I was laughing out loud at the absurdity of not being able to lose and was barely even trying now since it just flowed.

By the time of my 3rd and final ball - I felt the effects of the mushrooms beginning to diminish and as they did so did my connection to the energy around the machine and the points stopped rising as I started hitting dead parts of the bumpers and then the last ball drained ending the game. Once the mushrooms' effects were gone, a feeling of isolation and disconnectedness returns compared to the sensations under the influence - truly disconcerting.

My interpretation of this incident is it is related to winning streaks and the like - that sometimes our energies of our mind/body harmonize with the energies around us and in effect we are able to affect matter which is in effect energy itself - not like telekensis, but more like a mutually agreed or partnership in shaping reality in the immediate vicinity however fleeting. In this case the mushrooms were the aid, but meditation, spirituality, and other avenues exist. I had one other similar objectively verifiable occurrence that lasted several days and no drugs were involved, but will save for another time... Ultimately our place in and the operation of our universe/reality is far more than our five senses or traditional physics knows at this time and likely DMT, LSD, Mushrooms and possibly other substances open those doors of access for us...?

If I may include some of my own commentary on DMT, Carl Jung, and the Entities:

The entities of the DMT experience appear to exist as autonomous manifestations of some sort of primordial state of matter and consciousness. They represent a state of "energy" which is utterly exempt from the laws of physics as we know them, as such that they marvel us with their incredible feats of dimensional manipulation. They continually extol sheer effortlessness in shocking us with "insights" which quite literally blow the lids off of our minds. Often this sort of overload of input during a DMT experience results in our immediate shock and subsequent denial, which leads to our forgetting of the experience itself; quite literally, we reject the experience as impossible and possibly psychotic.

Oftentimes, the entities appear to be "waiting" for us; welcoming us back, so to speak, to this autonomous land of infinite potentiality and dimension-free imagination. Upon entry into this DMT state, the Elves seem to weigh our consciousness almost immediately. Now whether or not they are strictly personal manifestations is not actually knowable; however, the vast consensus - the similarity of religious accounts that span thousands of years - it is these psychic facts which we cannot ignore. These beings litter our worlds religions and mythologies; they are the "little" representatives of the collective unconscious; they are the fairies and elves of the world's countless myths. These beings, as understood by Jung, were the Devil's fallen angels of the unconscious; Lucifer - the bringer of light - they are his workers; communicating to us the contents of our unconscious for the purpose of fulfilling the great alchemical opus that has spanned the entire duration of the Universe which exists within the human mind. They urge for the reconciliation of the opposites; the final consummation of Eternity; the realization of the Ouroboros. They help mankind achieve this by facilitating our evolution through the mechanized release of unconscious psychic contents.

The final achievement; the heiros gamos of the human mind and subsequently, the human race, lies upon these entities which either grant us, or deny us entry to the Godhead - they are it's protectors.

The Book of Enoch

LXX1. 5-8

"And he (angel Michael) translated my spirit into the heaven of the heavens,
And I saw there as it were a structure built of crystals,
And between those crystals tongues of living fire.
And my spirit saw the girdle which girt that house of fire,
And on its four sides were streams full of living fire,
And they girt that house.
And round about were Seraphim, Cherubim, and Ophannin:
And these are they who sleep not,
And guard the throne of his glory.
And I saw angels who could not be counted,
A thousand thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand,
Encircling that house,
And Michael, and Raphel, and Gabriel, and Phanuel,
And the holy angels who are above the heavens,
Go in and out of that house"

They weigh our worthiness with their trickster-like macabre playfulness, which is meant to shake us from our rigid complacency. They are the Tykes of the Aeon; God's mischievous elves which are the living Logos. They exist within our unconscious, in my argument both on a personal and most of all, on a collectively shared level. Shamans who enter this state often get right down to business with these entities, because they have gained the control of their manifestation through emptying their psychic "closet," so to speak. The entities appear to be a distraction to those of whom intentions are either suspect or utterly destitute of any true spiritual context. Those who enter this state without any true purpose will be met with entities who may seemingly torture you with their "negative" energy and shocking visions; or they may go easy on you and just seemingly "play around" with you. To those of the pure in heart and poor in spirit, however, they seem to welcome you with open arms and try to acquaint you as gently as possible. They grant you entry and take care of you while you are in this state. A feeling of great love and comfort is often felt by people whom are open to the entities and are harboring no pent up "darkness" (negative psychic contents) within their respective being.

From Carl Jung's Red Book:

What serviceable forms rise from your body, you thieving
abyss! These appear as elemental spirits, dressed in wrinkled
garb, Cabiri, with delightful misshapen forms, young and yet old,
dwarfish, shriveled, unspectacular bearers of secret arts, possessors of ridiculous wisdom, first formations of the unformed gold, worms that crawl from the liberated egg of the Gods, incipient ones, unborn, still invisible. What should your appearance be to us? What new arts do you bear up from the inaccessible treasure chamber, the sun yoke from the egg of the Gods. You still have roots in the soil like plants and you are animal faces of the human body; you are foolishly sweet, uncanny, primordial, and earthly. We cannot grasp your essence, you gnomes, you object-souls. You have your origin in the lowest. Do you want to become giants, you Tom Thumbs? Do you belong to the followers of the son of the earth? Are you the earthly feet of the Godhead? What do you want? Speak!"*

That is Carl directly addressing the entities. For more, visit my website in my signature. I hope this post wasn't too long.

I loved that pinball story. I do not doubt for a minute it happened just as you said either.
We are eventually going to be able to bring on these states by subjecting the body to a certain vibration or blend of vibrations, and then we will be faced with a decision about whether or not to place ourselves permanently in that kind of space. We already face the question of "soma" in the form of antidepressants and the like, but this will be a tougher decision because just about everyone will want the little box or chip or whatever that puts out the groovy vibe that feels so good.
Actually, those of us who work with orgonite, ormus, and even stones already know something of how it works and can work even better. These substances are crude compared to what we will engineer with vibration. It doesn't have to be a device carried on the body either. We can already make mobius coil devices that sweeten the atmosphere of a home and even a city block, so the decision may even be more 1984-ish and involve neighborhood towers putting out waves that alter the body in a huge variety of ways. We already know that cell phone towers can funk up a whole neighborhood, but the corollary to that is that they can also sweeten it, and "gifting" the ground at the foot of the towers in effect is already accomplishing this. We are already there., but probably the future developments in vibrational effects will create much less subtle states approximating that of the hallucinogen but without the coming down and the hangover.